Boston, MA, 03/28/2013 – There are a large number of U.S Corporate facilities in China and the corporate world has been the target of numerous cyber attacks in recent years. China has provided developed countries with cheap labor and production facilities that are run on very poor regulations. For several decades American technology giants have been trying to harness scientific talent within China. Though profitability was the main aim of these efforts the U.S companies also believed that a more technologically advanced China would automatically become more democratic and peaceful.

Growth at a price

In theory, all of this seems on the level and very conducive to the growth of the nation as a whole but what western companies had to give China in return for access to their markets and production facilities was technology. This eventually has resulted in China acquiring hacking power and most of it has been very willingly handed to it in the form of partnerships, by Global powers. The military and the government has benefited to a large extent with this interchange of know-how which is co-related to sabotage, spying and business-secrets theft.

Behind the façade of technology

Ironically, some of the first victims of the China-U.S cyber capacity attacks were Chinese citizens. These included ordinary people whose online consent had been tracked and censored for services and products provided by Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) (Current: $28.60, Up by 0.83%), Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (Current: $794.19, Down by 1.06%). In some other cases, dissidents were tracked via Cisco Systems, Inc (NASDAQ:CSCO) (current: $20.90, Up by 0.31%) and Yahoo! Inc (NASDAQ:YHOO) (Current: $23.53, Down by 0.26%) technology. Google has filed several complaints against china-based hackers but these four companies in addition to many others continue providing the Chinese customers access that can very easily be used against business targets and the U.S government as well.

Supporting cyber offensive

A decade ago International Business Machines Corp (NYSE:IBM) (Current: $213.30, Up by 1.14%) had not realized the importance of vigilance and information security within its Chinese units and the company maintains that it has been helping the Chinese government meet its challenges and solve problems like those that are faced in administration. Cisco Systems, Inc (NASDAQ:CSCO) (current: $20.90, Up by 0.31%) also says that they have been maintaining close ties with the Chinese government. Inadvertently, what all these companies are doing is that they are strengthening the technology base of a country that can pose to be a foreign threat to U.S security as said by the Defense department.

The situation was a very different one before China launched a cyber offensive against the U.S and companies could very conveniently say that they and the U.S would be benefited by the technological exchange. However, the new security threats offset all these benefits and have to be looked at in an altogether different light.